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 If there is one thing I have learned in becoming a new father, it is to have greater respect for my wife. Now if you have been following my blog at all then you know that I am a conservative -- I always have been and I always will be. That means that my first inclination is to nod to past experience and the lessons of history. But when it comes to childbearing, it strikes me that we in America are just now beginning to figure out how to do this right. Maybe it's because hospitals just now seem to be making their facilities more celebratory and comfortable than utilitarian and medicinal. Maybe it's because in the baby classes that we attended my wife and I heard several return participants say that the curriculum had changed significantly in the past few years. Maybe it's because men from my parents' generation tend to not be familiar with the importance of paternity leave, or even why breast-feeding is preferable to the bottle. Maybe it's because only in the past year has the military decided to forgo fitness tests for new mothers and give them the time off work that they deserve. It might be a combination of all these things. What I know is that we as men have historically not given nearly enough credit to the women who have carried, delivered, and raised us. I struggle to understand, particularly now, how any man could have witnessed a woman spend nine months going through three trimesters of chaotic body changes, watch her push through hours if not a full day of excruciating labor, observe her forfeit proper sleep for months if not years, and then have the audacity to tell this woman that she cannot vote. What were our ancestors thinking? Combat is another one. If you've been in the room when a child was born, or even seen the film The Back Up Plan, then you know exactly what I'm talking about. With any birth there is no shortage of screaming, crying, spilled blood, frantic people running around, and collateral damage. For me it's the closest thing to war I've seen since Afghanistan. Any woman strong enough to push through this is more than capable of being a soldier if she so chooses. And yet we're just now recognizing that fact. Of course, I love Father's Day and I will cherish this as my first. I look forward to seeing my dad set up his Bluetooth Death Star and I can't wait to see what my wife has bought me from ThisiswhyImbroke.com. But I'm under no illusions about my responsibilities versus hers. Every weekday I show up for my routine job, enjoy interaction with my network of friendly coworkers, and fulfill my responsibilities to further our department's programs. For the most part there is limited crying and not a lot of crap to deal with. My wife's life is another story. Right now she spends her entire day in our home going through an endlessly repeating cycle of inserting nutrients into a small human who loves to spew them right back out from a wide variety of orifices. This isn't a pleasant process. After a day spent disposing of a cornucopia of smelly forms and textures, my wife doesn't even get to sleep much. Even when she does it's usually just for a few hours and then she has to either feed the baby or hook herself up to a contraption that looks like it belongs on a farm. She does this tirelessly, without complaining, and then I show up after holding a few bottles and change a diaper or two, and somehow I get a whole holiday in my honor. The true story is that, while at home on maternity leave, my wife is the one doing the real work. I do enjoy Father's Day and I think we as dads deserve it. But this year, as I celebrate my first, I am also thinking about Mother's Day and its importance. I think we should reconsider it. I'm convinced they deserve a week.
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 A day after the horrible events in Orlando, Americans are again finding themselves in the traumatic and painful wake of a domestic terrorist attack. Yesterday the President remarked that we would all find out more regarding the killer’s motives and intentions, but based on initial reporting we already know what to expect. A radical jihadist with familial ties to the Taliban, and explicit support from ISIL? Anyone living in the United States can finish that narrative. The Boston Marathon, San Bernardino, Umpqua College – the story is becoming all too familiar and all too frequent.
“Senseless” is a word already being utilized to describe the mass murder. It certainly feels that way, and from our Western perspective we struggle to imagine why anyone would ever do such an appalling thing. However, this event wasn’t random and it certainly wasn’t incidental. What occurred was a premeditated, purposeful act of hate originated and planned by a known enemy. The United States is at war with ISIL, and as Sunday’s events agonizingly showed, they are certainly at war with us. This is the reality which Americans must accept – while our opponent may be Syrian-based, the war we are fighting against them knows no geographical bounds. ISIL’s social media propaganda solicits support from over 48 countries, and every year they bring in far more recruits than our military air strikes terminate. Domestically, the FBI is managing over 900 active investigations into ISIL-related activity, including at least one in every American state. For ISIL, this is total war. The front lines to this struggle are not merely towns like Fallujah or Mosul. They are familiar cities like Orlando and Los Angeles. Popular nightclubs, sporting events, public transportation, universities, holiday festivals – all of these otherwise enjoyable and peaceful venues are now potential targets for attack. And worst of all, such attacks are being carried out by an enemy most Americans would otherwise never encounter or know much about. What, the mournful residents of Orlando must be asking, did we ever do to them? It doesn’t help that in a war against ISIL, our government’s leaders rarely frame it as such. Not only should they be accurately portraying the enemy we face and preparing us for the threat, our leaders should be doing everything they can to empower the US military to fully exterminate ISIL. Right now they are not. The truth is that America can do more, and we should be doing more. This sentiment has been frequently articulated by Republicans and the right, even to such extremes as former presidential candidate Ted Cruz claiming he would “carpet bomb ISIS to see if the sand glows.” Presumptive nominee Donald Trump has said much of the same, advocating both a freeze on immigration as well as the targeting of Syrian civilians to punish terrorists. But these aren’t strategies as much as they are tactics. Simply killing more ISIL members won’t defeat their ideology or stop radicalization, and barring immigration while spreading the violence to civilians will only serve to radicalize more of the 1.6 billion Muslims living in the world. To actually root out ISIL, and to prevent events like Orlando from recurring, the United States needs a better and more comprehensive strategy. We need a thorough, nuanced, and expansive plan of action which will undermine the terrorist group’s support from the ground up. Such a strategy must incorporate an accurate understanding of existing players in the Middle East, recognition of the appeal that ISIL uses to solicit and maintain its widespread support, and bold initiatives which incorporate successful ventures from the past with new ideas for the future. Nothing less will eliminate the fierce and resilient enemy we face at home and abroad. We owe our prayers, thoughts, and sympathy to the victims of Orlando and their families. Along with this, we owe them our very best efforts at enacting justice for what occurred. In the upcoming posts I will offer an outline of a military strategy which can accomplish precisely that.  “BE IT RESOLVED,” states the preamble to the formal rules of the Republican Convention,” that the Republican Party is the party of the open door.” The preamble goes on to defend the purpose of the rules as to ensure the “broadest possible participation of voters” in its activities and to make the party “open and accessible to all Americans.” The ideological basis of the Republican Convention is thus the purposeful inclusion and tolerance of all American citizens regardless of heritage, race, gender, or religion. Doesn’t sound like the party of Donald Trump does it? Candidate Trump recently got himself into trouble for denouncing Judge Gonzalo Curiel on the basis of his Mexican heritage, despite the fact that Judge Curiel is an American citizen born in Indiana. Republican leaders, including some as closely aligned to Donald Trump as Newt Gingrich, have gone on record stating that they do not have an issue with Trump’s questioning the political (or in this case, unabashedly liberal) inclinations of any judge. It is, however, the fact that Trump links such ideology to culture and race that is the larger problem. Despite Trump’s own insistence that many Latinos are in support of his candidacy, his implication that political bias somehow causally follows race or heritage is something the majority on either side of the political aisle finds “inexcusable.” Such comments cannot come as a surprise to those who have been closely following the presidential race. Trump began his candidacy on a tough anti-immigration stance in which he couched his proposal within stereotypical indictments against Mexicans. In defiance of the first amendment, he then argued for a ban against all Muslims on the basis of their religion alone. And it was Trump himself who stated that Syrian children should not be allowed to live or determine their own destiny if they happen to be born into the wrong family. If Newt Gingrich’s comments are telling, then most Republican leaders seemed to have believed that Trump would pivot away from such rhetorical nonsense following a nomination victory. Many Republicans may have calculated that Trump’s bigotry was simply a form of pandering to the party’s excitable fringe elements. The fact is, however, that the candidate’s recent comments are simply the latest evidence that Trump means exactly what he says. And even if Trump were to distance himself from his own comments in the near future, Republicans should take this opportunity to decry such behavior and punish it vehemently. Such inflammatory talk should be labeled for what it is – indefensibly opposed to the purpose of the Republican Party, and a cause for disqualification from its nomination. Those familiar with party guidelines will be quick to note that the convention rules offer no litmus test for the ideology of the presumptive nominee. Given the party’s record of past successful nominations, such a test has not been required until now. But Trump’s pending nomination presents a dire situation -- a revocation of the Convention’s core purpose -- and as a result desperate acts within the confines of existing rules must be taken. According to Rule No. 12 of the convention rules, for example, amendments may be offered if proposed and accepted by the Standing Committee on Rules prior to the convention in July. In fact, as explained in Rule No. 32 the Republican Convention laws themselves may be suspended on the basis of majority agreement of any seven states. Such an agreement could be reached if party leaders were to work quickly to generate a consensus and a path to nomination for the runner up (in this case Ted Cruz) or an alternative credible candidate who will pledge allegiance to the party’s purpose. For the good of the party, allegiance to its core purpose, and in defense of Constitutional conservatism the Republican Party's leadership must pursue this course. Should Trump be disqualified, his supporters will no doubt cry foul and declare the will of democracy on their side. But lest we forget, the United States was founded not as a pure democracy but a Constitutional Republic with limits to government and restrictions upon its leaders. The Republican Party in particular, with its frequent conservative invocations of the Constitution and the wisdom of our nation’s Founding Fathers, claims allegiances to this identity. That the same GOP would nominate a man who specifically calls for a rejection of those Constitutional limits is a far greater tragedy than upsetting the temporary will of the people. We as Republicans are, after all, the party who believes that liberty should exist for all. We believe that a person’s work ethic and contributions to society are the standards by which recognition is earned – not by what race he is or what family he happens to be born into. Ours is the party of Lincoln, Reagan, and Bush – the party that brought America the leaders who declared the Emancipation Proclamation, defeated the ideology of Soviet communism, and pioneered the war on terrorism. Ours is not the party of racism, bigotry, or xenophobia. It is time we made this resoundingly clear by rejecting the embodiment of such vices in Trump’s candidacy. As such, being faced with his nomination may present, instead of catastrophic and ideological defeat, the opportunity of a lifetime for the Republican Party to put accusations of racism to bed once and for all. The “Party of the Open Door” can live up to that name if its leaders close that door on the bigotry and racism of Donald J. Trump.  A mere three years ago, the radical terrorist group known as ISIS stood at a mere 12,000 fighters. Today, most estimates place the group’s numbers closer to 32,000 and substantial evidence suggests that ISIS will continue to expand its recruiting pool to over 80 countries. What is most shocking about this surge is that it has occurred during or in spite of America’s military campaign against the group. Operation Inherent Resolve has successfully killed no less than 27,000 fighters through the conduction of 11,000 airstrikes, and yet ISIS continues to grow. Such failure to contain the group has left American politicians and military leaders scrambling for answers and talking points indicative of a better strategy. Among the alternative viewpoints are those voices calling for a withdrawal of American forces from Iraq and Syria. In the minds of these proponents ISIS’ identity is only tangentially related to the Muslim faith, and the group’s appeal may be more directly linked to “blowback” from foreign influence in the region. Should American forces withdraw, it is surmised, ISIS would be left to its caliphate project but without a major source of its attractiveness. In the meantime the Unites States will have untangled itself from a problem that was never ours to begin with. The problem with this approach is that it fails to recognize the range of ISIS’ recruitment. Even if ISIS wasn’t or shouldn’t have been an American problem originally, it has certainly become one now. Last year reports by the FBI revealed that American law enforcement agencies are actively pursuing over 900 investigations of domestic ISIS recruitment. The scope of these investigations include one or more in all 50 states, and at least 27% of the suspects identified are or have been engaged in plots to attack our homeland. Regardless of whether or not an American withdrawal would have positive long term affects in deterring ISIS, few would dispute the proposition that ISIS would immediately claim “victory” in response to an American retreat. Such a boost in public relations would no doubt give ISIS a recruitment spike and bolstering of offensive capability. For a group that sees every non-believer as an enemy deserving death, this would represent an enormous risk with potentially disastrous consequences for American national security. On the opposite end of the spectrum are those calling for greater and more robust investment in the military campaign against ISIS. Many of these proponents directly link the appeal of ISIS to the Muslim faith itself, with some even going so far as to say that Muslim immigration to the United States should be halted and Muslim neighborhoods should be monitored. The issue with this approach, aside from its legal complications, is that it risks aggravating and radicalizing the 3.3 million Muslims presently living in America. However one may interpret the Quran and its teachings on jihad, numerous studies indicate that at present over 80% of American Muslims express at least some opposition to ISIS and its tactics. Nearly half want to see more vocal opposition from their clerics and religious leaders. Should law enforcement action be taken against this group, such numbers would undoubtedly change for the worst. With greater sympathy for ISIS would come the strong potential of increased domestic recruitment and attacks. To understand this, non-Muslim Americans should consider the same methodology if it were applied to themselves and their own beliefs. If an American politician or media spokesperson were to claim that Westboro Baptist Church was an isolated hate group, for example, many evangelicals including mainstream Baptists would express immediate approval. But if that same politician were to claim that Westboro Baptist’s behavior was indicative of a larger evangelical problem, those same mainstream Baptists would feel stereotyped, threatened, and unjustly linked to a radical group they don’t agree with. Close analysis thus reveals that both alternative strategies will make the problem worse. To truly defeat ISIS, the United States must reject both avenues and instead adopt a strategy that focuses not only on ISIS’ institutions (personnel, territory, and resources) but also the problems of its identity and ideology. American politicians must communicate an understanding of Islam that unifies ISIS dissenters and emboldens them and their religious leaders to further decry the terrorist group’s association with the Muslim faith. Such a strategy requires facing off against ISIS in the realm in which it has experienced the majority of its success: namely, social media. Unlike al-Qaeda, which mainly releases leader-focused media involving sermonizing and long diatribes, ISIS prefers a sensationalist approach. On average, ISIS puts out 40 or more high-quality social media products (violent videos, dramatic short films, etc.) per day. Evidence abounds that the group also engages in crowd sourcing and similar tactics to amplify its message. To defeat ISIS and truly cut off its primary recruiting pipeline, the United States must match the group’s investment in social media and respond with a unified counter message that exposes the group’s failures and effectively severs them from the Muslim faith. The components of this campaign exist, but presently they are disorganized and fragmentary. US government efforts, such as its “Think First, Turn Away” initiative focus particularly on overt negative messaging and lack the broad religious support to be effective. Isolated Muslim grassroots efforts such as “My Jihad” and “Not in My Name” remain separate from the authority of religious figures such as Shawki Alam (Grand Mufti in Egypt), Abdulaziz al-Shaikh (Grand Mufti in Saudia Arabia), and Mehmet Gormez (highest cleric in Turkey) who have previously denounced ISIS. And many nongovernmental organizations working to better the lives of peaceful Muslims, such as Lazuardi Birru in Indonesia, remain disconnected from international efforts. Americans must encourage these ISIS dissenters to link their efforts and respond in a unified voice. Steady amounts of publicity, including a daily stream of quality material blending both negative and positive messaging, will be required. The voice of every Muslim from refugees, former terrorists, clerics, to common practitioners should be amplified to explain both what Islam is not (a religion conducive to the type of violence practiced by ISIS) and what it can and should be (a religion of tolerance and peace). This amplification must be fueled by media outlets worldwide, and it will likely take cooperation between international nongovernmental organizations, religious experts, cinema elites, and government clandestine agencies to be successful. Critics, many of whom have neither read nor studied the Quran, will say that such a project is doomed from the start. They will say that the Muslim faith is inescapably tied to violence. A strict interpretation of the Muslim holy book’s 9th chapter, they will argue, prevents moderation and lasting peace with infidels. Lest we engage in hypocrisy, I would encourage such critics to examine their own worldview (be it Judaic, Christian, atheist, or otherwise) and remind themselves why and how they are not tied to the violent practitioners of their own movement. Beyond this I would argue that we as American citizens have a responsibility to uphold the legacy of religious liberty imparted to us. Do we not have a moral duty to strengthen the voices of religious peace, and thereby quell the hatred of our enemies?  One of the most curious aspects of the 2016 President nomination cycle thus far has been the resolute support enjoyed by Donald Trump among many Christians. Trump has received endorsements and praise from such well-known Christians as Sarah Palin, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell Jr., and Willie Robertson. Despite his vulgarity and many questionable statements, Trump continues to press on from state to state and receive a steady stream of votes from many self-identified Christians. Politics is a rough and secular business, much of his supporters’ thinking goes, and therefore nothing short of a raging bull is going to make a difference.
There are, of course, plenty of Christians who oppose him. Few, however, are willing to take a strong stand against him the way they have against Hillary Clinton. I was shocked by a recent well-known pastor who bragged about the diversity within his congregation, as he said that many members were split between Trump, Rubio, or Cruz. The pastor said he would not endorse a single candidate, but that he had no problem with Christians voting for Trump. This, to him, was far different than a vote for Clinton because of her views regarding abortion. And this is precisely the problem: Donald Trump may not be everyone’s political cup of tea, but he is still viewed as a viable alternative within the Christian community. Many Christian pastors and churchgoers would agree that his brashness, demagoguery, and hard-nosed campaigning aren’t particularly attractive, but how many would stand before their congregations and go so far as to say that no Christian should vote for Donald Trump? Such a shift would require a poignant reason. And the fact that Donald Trump is vulgar is simply not enough – most people understand that such vulgarity is a near-constant occurrence behind the scenes of political life and Trump is just exposing it. The fact that he has engaged in infidelity is a non-starter as well; divorce and re-marriage have been a common part of American society (and the church) for decades. And the fact that he has bought and sold politicians doesn’t hurt him as much as it helps the case that he’s turning against his class for the sake of the people. No, if there is one thing that should give every Christian pause; if there’s one thing that should make pastors rethink their sermons, and if there’s one thing that should make Christian voters rethink their choice, it is this: during the majority of his campaign, including his initial rise, Donald Trump passionately and resolutely argued that the American military should commit war crimes. On the surface, this may seem like something easily dismissed as one of a million instances of exaggeration, pandering, or hyperbole common to the political game. Ted Cruz, for example, characterized his own plan to defeat ISIS as “carpet bombing Syria to see if the sand will glow in the dark.” Such a proposal of near-total war, if carried out, would leave countless civilians dead. In Cruz’s case, however, closer questioning and scrutiny by moderators quickly revealed that what Cruz actually meant was a precision-bombing campaign and that he was either unaware of what carpet-bombing actually entails or (more likely) he was using such language as a rhetorical device to show his commitment to ending the terrorist group’s existence. Along similar lines, Donald Trump also reversed course on his proposal after taking huge amounts of criticism from military leaders. The problem with Trump’s reversal on war crime is that, when pressed, it took him months to back down or clarify the way Cruz did. In fact, in multiple debates and interviews Trump (unlike Cruz) tried to logically justify and strengthen the case for killing innocent Syrian women and children. In doing so, Trump laid out a thorough explanation for why he believed that such execution is just. And it is this explanation and the fact that Donald Trump stuck to it for so long that should make all born-again Christians denounce him immediately. For the majority of his campaign Trump argued that war crimes should be used to settle the tactical battlefield against ISIS. During this time voters received clear insight into Donald Trump's worldview and exactly how he plans to apply his brass tactics business approach to the political world. Essentially, Trump's method of operation is to attempt to level the playing field and then attack his opponent the same way that opponent would attack him, all the while using low blows whenever and however necessary. Such an approach already doesn't sound like the manner in which a Christian should conduct business, but it becomes even uglier and more dangerous when applied to war and politics where the stakes are higher. Nonetheless, Trump has marched on this course for months. How can it be fair, he often claimed, that such terrorists are chopping off heads and drowning their prisoners of war when we don’t even waterboard the ISIS terrorists we capture? And, he argued, women in particular should be targeted based on guilt by association --- they have knowledge of what their husbands are doing. This knowledge is enough to not only convict them as co-conspirators, it is enough to consider them combatants and thus execute them the same way we destroy active terrorists. By implication children are unlikely to be rehabilitated and might as well be killed, for which child whose parents were slain by Americans would not turn against us? In this manner Trump showed that the 'Great America' he hopes to build is one which will rest on a foundation of retaliation applied to the political world. This language should sound familiar to Christians. There are good reasons for us to be acquainted with the concepts – indeed, they make up large portions of the Hebraic laws and battles of the Old Testament. The principle of retaliation (“an eye for an eye”) is given in Exodus, and in 1 Samuel God commands Israel to leave no child or woman alive in their conflict with the Amalekites. Thus, in following Trump’s effort to apply retaliation to politics, we follow in the footsteps of the ancient Hebrews who under God’s authority converted entire villages into pools of blood. The only difference is that they did this over 3,000 years ago with swords and spears and we'd be doing it in the modern era with drones and A-10s. It is precisely at this juncture that Christians should ask themselves exactly why Jesus Christ came to this earth and what he means to us. The relationship between the laws of Leviticus and what Christ said and did is crucial here. For our sake, did Jesus not come to fulfill the law, save us from the bondage of retaliation, and teach and embody the most excellent way? Was not the core of his teaching that the goal of life is to love God and love our neighbors, and that we cannot do the former without doing the latter? And did Christ not specifically say that such love must be extended to one’s enemies? This isn't to say that Christ was a pacifist. He confronted the author of evil, and he faced human depravity at its worst. He healed, taught, and emboldened the innocent all while facing his enemies with steadfast resolve. Christ was victorious not because he sunk to the level of his enemies, but because he overcame their underhanded schemes as he held close to the Father and maintained his virtue. Christ fought evil with good as he embodied something the world had never seen -- sacrificial innocence delivered unto crucifixion which resulted in the defeat of death itself. The ethic of Christ is that we were all once made in the image of God, and that we return to this purity not by retaliation but by shunning evil and accepting Christ’s sacrifice as the essence of what is good. Innocence is thus a supremely important concept for Christians. It is for this reason, I believe, that many Christians have been outspoken in their belief that neither Hillary Clinton nor Bernie Sanders should be elected president. To elect another liberal candidate, they say, would result in more pro-choice justice appointees and many more innocent children being killed. I agree with such sentiment and for the sake of unborn children I too find it important that we take a stand to prevent another pro-choice president. But I also find it shocking that the same Christians who join me in this stand cannot find a similar reason to denounce Donald Trump. The fact that Donald Trump finally backed down from his long-held position of proposing war crimes is merely the first indication that his brass tactics principles are unlikely to work in the political world. And even if he could make them work, they would still not be anywhere near the level of virtue to which Christ has called us. Whether or not Trump's reversal was heartfelt or politically motivated may become more clear in the months ahead; but one fact will be unchanged: for many months this man enjoyed wide Christian support while openly calling for our military to find, fix, and finish innocent children by shooting them in the head. We can and must do better.   What is it in a man that causes him to do the unthinkable? Why would a student, afforded higher education and the opportunity to advance in life, instead choose to study acts of terrorism and violence? Why would a young man arm himself with firearm after firearm, stocking himself with enough ammunition for a military operation only to turn it against the innocent and defenseless? Exactly what temptation does a person fall into that leads him to force his peers against a wall and systematically execute each one who admits to a Christian faith? Why Christopher Harper-Mercer, why Umpqua Community College, and why now?
Horror, shock, and grief after the Umpqua shooting are reactions not limited to a particular side of the American political spectrum. We all feel mixed emotions of disbelief, sadness, and anger that such a terrible event could occur on a college campus. Such an environment is normally a place where education is prized, disagreements are civil, and mass murder is unthinkable – a place that should be safe. Tragedies such as what happened last Thursday have the potential to unite America in a shared experience of loss, and to bring together people from all corners of the country in mourning for those who were victims on that dreadful day. But this shared experience does not change the fact that, amidst the grief surrounding such a tragedy, serious questions must be answered. The American people, who now seemingly accept a risk every time they venture onto an institution of higher learning, deserve to know why this man did what he did and what can be done to prevent further acts of violence. We need answers -- thoughtful and insightful answers -- which can provide a level of explanation that will help us make sense of this tragedy. It is only from this place of understanding that we can painfully but justly move to closure, as we empower ourselves to take the right and proper preventive action to keep the Umpqua shooting from happening again. No such answers have yet come from President Obama and his administration. The day of the event the President provided a public statement in which a mere two sentences were devoted to the identity of Christopher Harper-Mercer. Conceding that little was yet known about him or his motives, Obama argued that Harper-Mercer should simply be grouped with other terrorist shooters who have “sickness in their minds.” The President moved on from here quickly, having instead much to say about the state of our country at large. In so doing Obama evidenced just how unimportant Harper-Mercer’s motives would be, once uncovered, to his narrative of the event. And this is main problem with President Obama’s approach, just as it is with the arguments of the anti-gun lobby. It isn’t simply that the effectiveness of gun control is in doubt (as many conservatives are currently arguing), but rather that the anti-gun lobby has already accepted a narrative to explain school shootings in general. With or without investigation, the events that unfolded at Umpqua College fall into place in this narrative and become added fuel to an already blazing fire. Whether or not Christopher Harper-Mercer was a neo-fascist, a white supremacist, a radical Islamist, or none of the above matters little when the preconditioned narrative already accepts the instrument rather than the perpetrator as the focus of judgment. Or, in the case of Obama’s narrative, it can be said that Christopher Harper-Mercer’s life and motives do not matter because the blame doesn’t fall squarely on him. Instead, as the President argued, it is the American people who are to blame for fostering an environment in which such atrocities can occur. The reason we have done this, he explains, is because we as a people are “numb” to mass tragedy. Calling our sympathetic thoughts and prayers “not enough,” President Obama argued that our lack of sympathy is evidenced in that the “cause of continuing death for innocent people” is no longer a “relevant factor” in our political decisions. As a result of such idle numbness, we as Americans give terrorists the opportunity to mass murder civilians. Ultimately, according to our President, we as the American electorate should accept that it is our fault that this tragedy occurred, for it is we who continue to make a “political choice” to “allow this to happen every few months” in our country. A far wiser president than he once stated that “we must reject the idea that every time a law is broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker” and that “it is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.” To know exactly what we should do about the shooting at Umpqua College, we should know exactly what happened and why. And before any larger conversation on the nature of gun control versus the right to bear arms can recommence, we should first reflect on the assumptions we bring to the table. For it may well be that it is the narratives we cling to, rather than our sympathetic thoughts and prayers, which aren’t enough.  A few months ago an acquaintance of mine expressed his exasperation involving a conversation he had with a young Christian. My acquaintance had asked the Christian why he so staunchly believed the Bible to be true, and the Christian had simply responded, “Because the Bible says so.” Of course, what made this conversation so exasperating was the circular reasoning in the Christian’s response. The fallacy he had inadvertently articulated, known in logic as “begging the question,” was assuming the validity of the premise in question. The Bible is true because it’s true. What surprises me today is not how few Christians are schooled in logical fallacies nor how many take the Bible as self-evident, but rather how many atheists act as if their own worldviews don’t rest on the same type of assumptions. Seemingly the most vocal and active atheists in social media today tend to be those who ascribe to a set of beliefs known as “scientism,” defined as the attempt to universally apply scientific reasoning, the scientific method, and empiricism to the exclusion of all other viewpoints or systems of knowledge. Many scientists, of course, don’t go this far and simply see science as a tool or means for learning more about the universe. In such cases they imply that non-scientific means of learning and experience, such as spirituality, may have validity in their own right. To say that science is the only tool for acquiring knowledge, as advocates of scientism believe, is thus an argument of exclusion. It challenges all spirituality along with any experience or knowledge eluding scientific analysis. The problem with scientism is that its advocates must wrestle with the fact that science itself rests upon numerous assumptions which cannot be proven scientifically. Some of these most widely agreed upon assumptions include the theory that the world exists apart from our senses, the theory that there is an order to existence which is discernable in the form of natural laws, and the theory that scientific tools are useful in discerning these laws. As most scientists recognize, even though we act every day as if these theories are true and indisputable, no one is able to scientifically and irrefutably prove them. Every person who tries is disqualified by virtue of being a participant in the same reality and existence in question. It is this questioning of the reliability of the senses that endeavors to bring down the whole basis of scientism. So long as we can trust the experience of our senses, which each of us does every day with little or no intention, scientific analysis proceeds normally. However, bringing doubt to one’s mind results in an unanswerable conundrum: no person can irrefutably prove the trustworthiness of his or her senses since any proof would be filtered through those same senses. As a result, we may only answer with the illogic of fallacy and circular reasoning. Much like the Christian who believes in the Bible’s self-evidence, we must choose to believe that the experience of our senses is trustworthy because we experience our senses in a trustworthy fashion. Advocates of scientism will no doubt respond that such questioning of the basis of science is beyond anyone’s scope. Everyone should instead continue on as they always have and take reality “for granted.” The problem with this, of course, is that it sounds an awful lot like faith.  A friend of mine recently shared a video from a popular atheist animator that caught my attention. In this video an inquisitive atheist encounters a group of people who eventually show themselves to be theists of different religions and denominations. As they express their differences, arguments arise between them which eventually lead to a satirical arms race. After deescalating the conflict, the atheist articulates several thoughtful questions to the group leaving them intellectually speechless. The video ends with the atheist departing without his questions answered, and the group degenerating back into a confused rabble. Though the video implies the promotion of humanism, the actual belief that the atheist confronts the group with is cultural relativism. According to cultural relativism, the inheritance of ideas is a serious barrier to the recognition of truth. Those who inherit false or misleading information from their upbringing are more likely to accept and defend these mistaken beliefs than recognize truth even when it is presented plainly to them. As the atheist tells the group, the “contradictory things” which God seems to be telling each of the different theists “may be explainable by the culture which you were raised.” The divine encounters claimed by each theist may in fact be unexamined products of culture or inherited desire. What I find particularly fascinating about the video is that the atheist does not apply cultural relativism to his own belief and descend into nihilism. Instead, he cites a simple math problem and states that "while religion obeys borders, truth does not.” The atheist explains that mathematics -- the scientific study of quantity, space, and change -- fits the criteria of universally recognizable truth. Unlike religion, he argues, mathematics is able to transcend cultural relativism by virtue of its empirical or self-evident nature. After all, can there be any serious disagreement across the universe concerning such an easily demonstrable fact as 2+2=4? This is fascinating to me because it implies that the atheist is not completely closed off to the existence of God. His objection isn’t so much that God can’t exist as that God doesn’t appear with universal clarity. To appear otherwise -- individually or personally, as the group members suggest -- does not strike the atheist as the proper conduct of a perfect supernatural being. As he explains, a god that acts in such a way effectively tolerates falsehoods, discrepancies, and disagreements and does not seem to be “getting it right from the beginning.” The implication is that a self-evident, empirically verifiable god who efficiently redeems us in clear demonstrable fashion would be much preferable and easier to believe in. What the atheist precludes, however, is the possibility of a god who doesn’t fit this criteria and yet maintains perfection. Could it be possible, for example, that God’s nature is sovereign rather than empirical – meaning that His work is the condition for the universe and its aspects rather than a component made evidential by them? Could it be that God’s manner of “getting it right from the beginning” was to purposefully trust humanity with evangelism knowing full well that it would lead to confrontation and diversity of experience? Is it conceivable that through such inefficient trust He communicates a graceful patience, tolerance, and love which is a testament to His perfection rather than a detraction from it? Is it ultimately possible that our judgment of what constitutes the proper conduct of a perfect supernatural being may be fallible simply because we are fallible? We may be asking different questions, but I actually find it amazing how much I agree with the atheist in the video. Like him I recognize and respect cultural relativism as a powerful force. I suspect that many people who practice religion are products of an unexamined inheritance, and I would even count myself as a member of this group for the first twenty years of my life. Furthermore, I also find it implausible that a god exists who conforms to common sense and human rationality. I see no evidence for a god who transmits His message with the simple uniformity and predictability of a basic math problem. The difference between the atheist and myself, however, is that my search doesn’t end there.  I often marvel at the certainty with which we progress through life. Whether watching the news, reading articles, or listening to casual conversations, I find no shortage of unyielding conviction and self-assurance that seemingly must accompany every person’s beliefs. Regardless of the topic, the exchange of ideas so often and so easily becomes a battle. In such cases our reputations, and often our identities, become interwoven with our opinions. We soon become hesitant to amend our minds regardless of what new evidence or method of thinking is introduced. A short descent from here leads us to the point at which we are fighting for the survival of our sentiments as if they were our very lives.
Have we forgotten how we came into this world? Born not of our will, our thought, or even by our own consent, we each awoke to discover a universe far exceeding our limited cognition and understanding. We were “thrown into existence," as Martin Heidegger has described it, and involuntarily flung into the process of encountering all the joys and sorrows of life. This feeling of being thrown, of geworfen, forces within us an instinctive recognition that life has found us and conscripted us into a particular place and time. But this awareness is fragile. As we progress through life and trek towards adulthood, we too easily discard it along with our immaturity. In doing so we turn our backs on the nature and experience of the past even as we may dimly recall certain details and times. Shadows fall over our peculiar origins, and soon boundaries are erected to confine our imagination within a prison of assumed certainty. In doing so we mistakenly reconstitute ourselves as creatures of our own making, powerful individuals who determine their own destiny by way of strength and intention. Descartes summarized this perspective well in declaring, “I think therefore I am.” Existence, now conceived, submits as a product of our own design. And yet, as Hannah Arendt and others have recognized, we remain fundamentally bound within the same reality that we seek to dominate. Being and appearance irrevocably coincide for us, and as a result we must at all times make use of our sensory perception to partake of reality. As such, we each assume or rely on a “perceptual faith,” an unverifiable conviction that everything we perceive has an existence independent of the act of perception. Descartes’ statement, as Maurice Merleau-Ponty has demonstrated, ignores this precondition and detrimentally assumes its own validity. In order to think and declare his own existence, Descartes must have already existed or assumed as much. Reminding us of the formidable nature of reality, such solipsism should restrict our certainty and reacquaint us with humility. Rather than self-assurance, we are left with faith as a sustaining principle for life. It is faith, with its tacit humility and recognition of an inherited reality greater than ourselves, which more accurately describes our continual and constant reliance upon perception to live. It is faith too that ascribes equal status to fellow explorers and unites us all in a respect that rests not on assumption but on curiosity and hypothesis. In rediscovering our curiosity and imagination through faith, perhaps we may again make use of these tools as our most valuable means of navigating this curious existence. |
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